If we look at the scene of Indian smartphone market a couple of years back, it was more of offline marketing and sales, than online. Since then, several Chinese brands entered India, and most were welcomed with an overwhelming response. It was good, for both, the brand and the consumers. For the brand, they had to spend almost nothing for marketing their products, and for the consumers, they had a newer and easier way, to sit on their couch and order a phone that gets delivered at their door step. And the price is much better, compared to what it is from the brands that have a good establishment in India already.

Xiaomi, OnePlus, and a few newer brands used strange but well working marketing strategies online, to get the sales they expected. India became a big market for them, and that, obviously attracts the other Chinese brands to put their foot into this big nation that was always getting better with number of smartphone sales.

Xiaomi had flash sales, OnePlus had an invite system. Some hated it, but had no option. But, were these brands doing any wrong? Nope, they weren’t at least attacking each other with some paid social media campaigns! Not something we’ve seen, at least. The latest two brands, i.e. Nubia (from ZTE), and Meizu, are just suddenly getting some attention, due to something from the latter. Check the tweet below, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

To be fair, we’ve heard of some paid campaigns (contests aren’t much different) where a product is praised. Most of the brands do it, but Nubia, in this case, is on the wrong side trying to get the competition down with negative reviews using social media.

[quote align=’right’]Some brands are doing wonders using the same Digital and Social marketing, while some brands choose the other (wrong) path.[/quote]You’ve just launched a phone, and your competition is launching one the next day. Both are unique in your own way. Instead of promoting your phone, you pay a social media consultant who helps you paint a negative image of the competitor?

This is exactly about today’s story – Meizu M1 Note launch in India. Nubia just launched its Z9 Mini yesterday, and could’ve got all the good name for bringing out a beautiful device. But, things look much different in this case.

We aren’t blaming just the brand here. It is even the social media consultants, PR, and the people involved in these kind of suggestions, who are at blame. It is unethical, but sadly, the ones doing it don’t seem to care about it. While this is a first where are seeing someone publicly sharing about this, may be we have missed out of such things that might have already happened in the past?

It’s high time brands should look at classy and good ways, like OnePlus did, created a space for themselves with their own social media tactics, and are doing very well. Unethical practices are going to work, but in the long run?

Note: We are yet to get an answer from Nubia about this. The tweet can still be called genuine, as now a few other people are claiming they got the same mail. Also, do forward us a copy, if you have received this mail.

Update: 3:30 p.m. (India): A tweet from the company Pulp Strategy, where the person in question was working, says that he is sacked and isn’t working with the company any more.